Wednesday, September 26, 2012

We mythologize ourselves as clear-eyed dwellers of a shining city on a hill, but the fact is: we can’t handle the truth.

The least salubrious aspect of the American
character is the susceptibility to self-deception. We mythologize
ourselves as clear-eyed dwellers of a shining city on a hill, but the
fact is: we can’t handle the truth. Because we cannot make peace with
our eroding stat­us as the world’s sole remaining superpower—one whose
economic dominance is now far from unrivaled in an age of
globalization—we retreat to cherished notions of American exceptionalism
and ignore all the ways, from educational achievement to social
well-being to wise stewardship of resources, in which we are not so
super at all.

We fight two far-flung wars while, for the first time in
history, cutting taxes in the same breath, and then wonder why we’re
having a rough go of it. We know at some level that our deficit is
unsustainable but can’t agree on what is abundantly clear: that reducing
it requires some combination of budget cuts and greater revenues.
Meanwhile, the planet is lashed by extreme weather events of singular
ferocity (including one that left parts of Washington, D.C., itself
blacked out for nearly a week this summer), and yet we debate climate
change as if it were a contested theory.

It goes on. Because
white births are no longer the majority in a citizenry with deep
Anglo-Saxon roots, and because many Americans recoil from this reality,
we resist any sensible solution to the problem of the roughly 12 million
illegal immigrants living among us and instead build high-tech barriers
in a futile effort to stem the flow. Indeed, we are further away from
any such solution than we were just six or eight years ago, when George
W. Bush and some of his more enlightened Republican allies tried to
think seriously about the question but were shot down by conservatives
in their own party. The advent of Barack Obama has meant that alarming
numbers among us cling not just to God and guns (as Obama once
infelicitously put it) but to the conviction that the president must be a
foreigner or a Marxist or a Muslim or even the Antichrist, and not
merely cool, cerebral, and—oh, yes—black. A recent poll by the Pew
Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life found that the
percentage of conservative Republicans who think Obama is a Muslim has
more than doubled over the past four years, from 16 percent in 2008 to
34 percent now. READ MORE

French
scientists said on [September 19] that rats fed on Monsanto's
genetically modified corn or exposed to its top-selling weedkiller
suffered tumors and multiple organ damage. Gilles-Eric Seralini
of the University of Caen and colleagues said rats fed on a diet
containing NK603 - a seed variety made tolerant to dousings of
Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller - or given water with Roundup at levels
permitted in the United States, died earlier than those on a standard
diet.

The animals on the GM diet suffered mammary tumors, as well as
severe liver and kidney damage.

The study was published in the
peer-reviewed journal Food and Chemical Toxicology and presented at a news conference in London.

The
researchers said 50 percent of males and 70 percent of females died
prematurely, compared with only 30 percent and 20 percent in the control
group.

GMOs are deeply unpopular in Europe and many other
countries, but dominate key crops in the United States after Monsanto in
1996 introduced a soybean genetically altered to tolerate Monsanto's
Roundup weed killer. Seralini was part of a team that has voiced
previous safety concerns based on a shorter rat study

in a scientific
paper published in 2009. This new study takes things a step further by
tracking the animals throughout their two-year lifespan. Seralini
believes his latest lifetime rat tests give a more realistic and
authoritative view of risks than the 90-day feeding trials that form the
basis of GM crop approvals, since three months is only the equivalent
of early adulthood in rats.

Note: For disturbing photos and more from the above long-term study on the dangers of GM food, click here. For an excellent article and a great two-minute video clearly explaining the major dangers of GM food, click here. For a powerful summary of the health risks from GM foods, click here.

he
presence of NYPD TARU (Technical Assistance Response Unit) officers at
Occupy protests has long been a source of contention among occupiers and
legal observers. The precise role and remit of the camera-wielding
officers is ill-defined; the end product of their constant filming
usually goes unseen by those featured in it.

However, on Sunday a group claiming Anonymous
affiliation released 60 hours of TARU footage from the night of the
Zuccotti Park eviction on Nov. 15. The footage is considered
particularly relevant in fleshing out the NYPD versus Occupy narrative,
since both mainstream and citizen journalists and videographers were
forcibly kept away from the park as officers dismantled the encampment
and rounded up protesters that night.

A release introducing the footage dump notes, “The
NYPD denied freedom of the press the night of the Zuccotti raid by
kicking out media and keeping them two blocks away … Much of the video
being released is edited by the NYPD, and at times edits are quite
blatant, probably trying to cover up their brutality.”

The release urges that readers share the TARU footage
and take note of any glitches or time stamp changes, which might suggest
selective editing. “We ask for an unedited version of the tapes,” it
notes.

Stickers appeared on ads paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative. (photo: IMEU)

By Ben Armbruster, Think Progress

26 September 12

fter
the anti-American protests erupted in the Middle East earlier this
month, Pam Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) decided
to re-up its anti-Muslim ad campaign in New York’s subway system. The ad, borrowing from an Ayn Rand quote, is meant to imply that Muslims are savages.

New York City transit authorities did not want to
display the ads but a federal court said refusing the ads would violate
AFDI’s First Amendment rights. But now that the ads are up, New Yorkers
are taking matters into their own hands, writing “RACIST” and “HATE SPEECH” over the ads in certain subway stations:

California voters will decide on mandatory labeling of GMOs in November. (photo: California Right to Know)

By Anne Sewell, Digital Journal

26 September 12

ollowing
the recent rat study on NK603 GMO corn, Russia has suspended imports of
Monsanto corn, while France continues investigations into the possible
dangers of GMOs to human health.

On Tuesday this week, Russia suspended the import and
use of Monsanto's genetically engineered corn, following the scientific
study released on September 19 on rats fed with this corn, which caused serious health problems, including tumors and organ failure.

The study was run over a period of two years, which is
the lifetime of the rats being studied and was the first animal feeding
trial, set up to study the lifetime effects of exposure to NK603
Roundup tolerant GM maize, and also to Roundup, the world's best-selling
herbicide and weedkiller.

The press everywhere is buzzing this week with premature obituaries of the Romney campaign.

New polls are out suggesting that Mitt Romney's electoral path to the presidency is all but blocked. Unless someone snags an iPhone video of Obama taking a leak on Ohio State mascot Brutus Buckeye, or stealing pain meds from a Tampa retiree and sharing them with a bunch of Japanese carmakers, the game looks pretty much up – Obama's widening leads in three battleground states, Virginia, Ohio and Florida, seem to have sealed the deal.

That's left the media to speculate, with a palpable air of sadness, over where the system went wrong. Whatever you believe, many of these articles say, wherever you rest on the ideological spectrum, you should be disappointed that Obama ultimately had to run against such an incompetent challenger.

Weirdly, there seems to be an expectation that presidential races should be closer, and that if one doesn't come down to the wire in an exciting photo finish, we've all missed out somehow.
Frank Bruni of The New York Times wrote a thoughtful, insightful editorial today that blames the painful, repetitive and vacuous campaign process for thinning the electoral herd and leaving us with only automatons and demented narcissists willing to climb the mountain:
READ MORE

In the United States, the Supreme Court has final say over whether
any law is constitutional. So in a way it's the final barrier that
prevents any legislators from getting too crazy or racist in the laws
they pass.
But the Supreme Court itself is not made up of gods or wizards. They
are just people, with agendas. And sometimes they have rendered opinions
that make you wonder if the whole legal system isn't just full of crazy
people from the top down. For instance, the court has ruled ...

#5. A Business Can Kick You Out of Your House if It Wants to Build There

#4. Scientists Can Create Life (And Corporations Can Own It)

#3. You Can Imprison an Entire Race, if You Have a Good Reason

#2. Mining Companies Can Go "Scorched Earth" on the Environment, if They Get Permission

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

This past weekend, Discovery Channel orchestrated the crash of a
Boeing 727 passenger jet in a remote and uninhabited Mexican desert as
part of a scientific experiment for an unprecedented international
television documentary for Discovery Channel, Channel 4 in the UK and
Pro Sieben in Germany.

The pilot evacuated the 170-seat aircraft (via parachute) just
minutes before the collision after setting it on a crash course. It was
then flown remotely from a chase plane. The crash went according to plan
and there were no injuries or damage to property.

The plane was packed with scientific experiments, including crash
test dummies in lieu of passengers. Dozens of cameras recorded the crash
from inside the aircraft, on the ground, in chase planes and even on
the ejecting pilot’s helmet.

An international team of experts will use the data to study the
crash-worthiness of the aircraft’s airframe and cabin, as well as the
impact of crashes on the human body, with the goal of finding new ways
to help increase passenger survivability. The experiment will also help
them evaluate new “black box” crash-recording technology.

The plane was crashed in a remote and unpopulated part of the Sonoran
Desert of Baja California, Mexico. The location was chosen after an
extensive international search to find a suitable location offering the
perfect conditions for this groundbreaking scientific project. READ MORE